This piece is well…just intellectually lazy. Dismissing the boycott as ‘bigotry’ without actually engaging with the argument behind it is weak opinion writing. Strong commentary should dismantle the opposing view, not just label it and move on.
The food-as-unity trope is also a tired cliché in Indian secular writing. People can share a meal and still harbour deep prejudices — culinary overlap doesn’t resolve communal tensions, and invoking it as though it does feels like a shortcut. So-called “binding over food” is trivial and glorifying it as some larger civilisational argument is indeed a stretch.
This piece is well…just intellectually lazy. Dismissing the boycott as ‘bigotry’ without actually engaging with the argument behind it is weak opinion writing. Strong commentary should dismantle the opposing view, not just label it and move on.
The food-as-unity trope is also a tired cliché in Indian secular writing. People can share a meal and still harbour deep prejudices — culinary overlap doesn’t resolve communal tensions, and invoking it as though it does feels like a shortcut. So-called “binding over food” is trivial and glorifying it as some larger civilisational argument is indeed a stretch.